Ship arrivals at Cairns QLD in 1900-3

I believe that my Grandmother arrived from Scotland about then but I haven't been able to find any listings on her. Her name was Jane Ferguson Duncan and was accompanied by her sister Margaret.Any help would be appreciated.

I have been having a bit of a sticky beak around, and if you are looking for Margaret Smith DUNCAN then she was Jane's much younger sister and born in 1892. It is unlikely she would have arrived with Jane in 1900.

Cairns wasn't an immigration port as they couldn't get into the inlet to berth and had to anchor in Trinity Bay and tender cargo and passengers to shore. I think that they probably only stopped when they did have cargo as well because it was all a bit of a drama.

I think I have found your Margaret her parents and her three younger siblings arriving in 1913 on the ship Limerick from London. The UK outbound manifest says that they were contracted to land at Brisbane but some passengers did disembark at Cairns and manifests are often wrong. There is an article about it here - the inlet had been dredged and a new wharf built: